Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania in relation to language planning

Abstract

Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania in relation to language planning  

This paper discusses language planning strategies affecting Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania after the change of the political regime. First it enumerates international and Romanian status planning decisions referring to settlement names. Although these decisions broaden the scope of the official language functions of a portion of the relevant names, they still deny the status of “official names” to the name forms concerned. The paper also presents the corpus planning activities affecting Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania. Topics such as achievements in lexicography; questions of codification determined by status planning decisions; initiatives to standardize Moldovan place names; results of the codification programme focusing on Hungarian minority settlement names in regions outside Hungary, are discussed in detail. Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania, despite the latest achievements in language planning, do not entirely meet the requirements of forming a standard name stock; therefore, in order to receive European and international acknowledgement, their further development is an urgent need.